


Baze Coffeeshop AU

by terroringlasses



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, First Meeting, M/M, Minor Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, One Shot, POV Baze Malbus, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 00:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13202133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terroringlasses/pseuds/terroringlasses
Summary: Baze just happens to be passing through the front of house when he sees him. He is striking, yes, but what really makes Baze stop short is the energy the man gives off. He recognizes something- danger and attraction and warmth and, weirdly, comfort. It’s been a long time since he’s felt anything even remotely like it, not since- well. Baze nearly drops his tray of sandwiches and, as Jyn looks at him oddly, mumbles an apology, and retreats into the kitchen.It takes him a few moments to regain control.In Which Baze pines quietly from the kitchen, whipping himself up into a frenzy of food.





	Baze Coffeeshop AU

**Author's Note:**

> This ain't nothing new. Nevertheless, I am compelled to share it.
> 
> Heavy nods to MajorEnglishEsquire and orange_crushed's "PWP: Pie Without Plot," as well as scaramouche, whose Baze lives in my heart.

Baze just happens to be passing through the front of house when he sees him. Shorter than Baze himself, but lean, with closely-cropped black hair, and piercing blue eyes. He is striking, yes, but what really makes Baze stop short is the energy the man gives off. He is positively thrumming with it. The hair on Baze’s arms prickles up, and he recognizes something- danger and attraction and warmth and, weirdly, comfort. It’s been a long time since he’s felt anything even remotely like it, not since- well. Baze nearly drops his tray of sandwiches and, as Jyn looks at him oddly, mumbles an apology, and retreats into the kitchen.  
It takes him a few moments to regain control.  
When he finally does, it’s to brush off the odd sensation he’d felt in the dining room. Hormones, he rationalizes. It’s been a while. And, he laughs brusquely to himself, that strange sensation of recognition? That feeling alone should be warning to back off. Experience has taught him to distrust such feelings.  
Jyn comes back later, ostensibly to retrieve additional coffee cup sleeves, but really, to make sure he’s all right. He assures her he’s fine, sends her back up front. She shares nothing about the customer, and he doesn’t ask.  
He tells himself to forget about the man. He’s never seen him before, and it is unlikely he’ll ever see him again.

___

He sees him again the next day.  
Hope has somehow trumped experience, and he peers through the kitchen window before exiting this time. Today, Bodhi mans the counter, and the man is standing at the register ordering, a placid smile on his face. Heartbeat thumping treacherously, Baze takes his time looking the man over this time. Still the same good looks, clothing that is soft but functional looking, and what appears to be a probing cane in his right hand. He stands confidently. Baze is sure he must have little stars in his eyes right now.  
He continues gazing until he sees Bodhi nod, and then turn towards the kitchen door.  
Baze panics, backing away and looking for something, anything, he might have been doing this entire time, instead of creeping on customers. Bodhi pops his head in.  
“Baze? Do we have any more of those bittersweet chocolate tarts?”  
Baze coughs, then amazes himself by answering a guttural “Yes,” and retrieves a tray from the rack. With a breath, he pushes out the door into the dining room. Replacing the empty tray with the fresh one, he stands back, watches Bodhi take the tongs and plate a tart, watches the customer’s elegant fingers pass over a card. “Thanks, man,” Bodhi says to Baze, though Baze barely registers, ‘And thank you, sir.”  
“Oh, not at all,” the customer smiles (Baze swears he is unaffected). “Thank you. And it’s Chirrut.”  
This whole time, Baze has said not a word. Chirrut, the new love of his life, takes the plate and finds a table. Baze’s breath is caught in his throat as he watches Chirrut lift a bite of the tart to his mouth. The customer’s eyes close, his head tilts back slowly, his throat works the food down.  
Baze turns immediately and, crossing through the kitchen to the prep station, adds bittersweet chocolate tarts to the menu for tomorrow.

___

The next day, Chirrut is already seated at the coffee bar by the time Baze gets to work. It’s Saturday, so both Jyn and Bodhi work the counter, with Kay in the kitchen. Baze eagerly looks to the man’s plate, but he’s not eating the tart; he’s having one of Kay’s croissant sandwiches. Baze covers his disappointment quickly, and nods to his coworkers as he stalks to the back.  
Jyn and Bodhi exchange nervous glances at his murderous looks (he is not nearly so good at recovering as he thinks he is).  
“Oh, hello,” Kay says, glancing at him as he dons his apron. “You are fifteen minutes early.”  
“And?”  
“And nothing. I am merely observing. You are usually only ten minutes early, and...how shall I say this, not one to shake up your routine.”  
He grunts at this. “The train ran a little early, that’s all.”  
Kay shakes his head. “Baze, in the last 125 years of operation, the likelihood of the train running early-“  
“Leave it, Kay.”  
Kay harrumphs a bit at that, but turns to his bread. Kay has been surprisingly chill since quitting his numbers job, but he still has that annoying photographic memory. Baze usually lets it roll off his back, but he is not feeling chill himself this morning.  
Baze stews over this for the rest of the morning, until it’s time for Jyn to leave. She pops into the back on her way to the lockers, and Baze runs a hand over his face, and breaks.  
“That...man. Chirrut. Why did he order a sandwich?”  
Jyn looks at him in surprise. “Chirrut? I suppose...because he was hungry?”  
“He said nothing about the tart?”  
“The tart?” She is baffled, but then, “Oh! Yes, he said he had a tart yesterday. You know, he is so interesting-“  
Baze does not doubt this, but this conversation is not for his benefit. “What did he say about the tart?”  
The look on Jyn’s face suggests that she is regretting ever entering this conversation. Baze knows he is being unbearably rude, but he cannot help himself. “He said it was delicious, but he is trying to cut back on sweets.”  
Baze processes this, then nods, satisfied. He stomps over to the prep list for tomorrow, and adds rosemary foccaccia bread. He swallows the desire to ask Jyn why she finds Chirrut so interesting.

___

Baze continues this for the next few weeks, adding and refining his prep list to the man’s orders, never speaking to him to ask specifically what he would like. Jyn and Bodhi dance around him warily, even as he growls his questions at them. Why didn’t he order the foccaccia sandwich? What meat does he prefer? Oh, he doesn’t eat meat? Why did he quit sweets? Does fruit count as a sweet? And poor Chirrut answers his indirect questions with charming good humor.  
Why does he have to be so charming and pleasant? Doesn’t he know Baze is dying inside?  
He still has not spoken to the man. Chirrut now occupies a regular place at the counter, where Bodhi or Jyn can just slide him his meal as it is prepared, and they can chat pleasantly in between other customers. He has good-natured debates with Cassian, another regular, who works at the Organa startup down the street, and he is firm, friendly, and insistent. Chirrut knows about Jyn and Cassian’s secret crushes on the other, but is respectful towards each (though gently implies that perhaps there is more reward in reveal than in hiding. Baze thinks about that as he eavesdrops). He listens to Kay’s analyses (rants?) of Palpatine Inc., leaders in the industry Organa is currently trying to disrupt, with rapt attention. All of that, and Baze is pretty sure that Chirrut still has no idea Baze even exists.  
The only time Baze ever sees him less than calm is when a group of Palpatine’s suits come in. They’re little better than gangsters, Palpatine, having “donated” so much money in the local government that they think they can get away with anything. Occasionally, they descend on the local businesses to engage in some racketeering. It doesn’t help that Baze has hired a crew with checkered pasts; both Bodhi and Kay fled Palpatine after experiencing some crises of conscience, and Jyn...well, let’s just say that Jyn has participated in some creative forms of anti-Palpatine activism. Baze has spent the last few decades trying to keep his nose clean, but it’s his business, and he’ll hire whomever he likes, okay?  
Anyway. They enter the cafe, loud and brash. Baze can hear them from the kitchen, and instantly his hackles are up. He carefully wipes his hands on a towel, cracks his knuckles, heaves a breath, and readies himself to go out front. There is a family from Mon Cala seated at a table in the corner, and the goons are already spewing their hateful commentary when he hears-  
“Leave them alone.”  
Baze pauses. There’s an edge there that he hasn’t heard in Chirrut before. He waits to see what happens.  
“What?  
“Leave them alone.”  
“Why exactly?”  
“It’s never wise to mistreat people, particularly those less powerful than you. We are all one with the Force of others.” Chirrut sips his tea. “Also, if you don’t leave immediately, I’ll be obliged to show you the will of the Force.” And the last little crack of shell protecting Baze’s heart falls away.  
There are guffaws, but the goons are not used to direct reprisals, and they leave, sneering about superstitious old beggars, and that “the coffee here sucks anyway.” Baze snorts at that, but is satisfied that they are leaving. He turns once again toward the kitchen, but hears Chirrut apologizing to Jyn.  
“I’m sorry to drive off business, but if you’ll forgive me, I don’t think you’ll miss them.”  
“Oh, no, Baze won’t mind at all! He hates those guys,” Jyn exclaims.  
“Baze?”  
Thinking about Chirrut’s lips gives him pause, but to hear his name on them makes him nearly faint. He will order a strong, strong coffee after Chirrut leaves.  
“Yeah, Baze, the owner. And cook.”  
Baze has hidden once again, but he can see in his mind the birdlike tilt in Chirrut’s face. “The cook, you say? What does he cook?”  
“Oh, nearly everything. Kay is more of a baker, but Baze is a tremendous cook. He’s refined the menu a lot lately, actually. Added a lot more vegetarian and vegan options. That lentil soup you’re eating is his recipe.”  
“Well, I should like to meet him, then.” There is a smile in his voice. “After all, he is my favorite cook.”  
Baze hides in the office, completing phone calls and paperwork that had suddenly become extremely urgent. Kay complains, and Baze has to spend the afternoon on the phone, but both of those put together are less frightening than the possibility of...whatever it is he’s afraid of.

___

It is several weeks later. Chirrut is sipping a mug of chai latte, bowl of spiced parsnip soup in front of him, when he hears something he has never heard before. A low, rumbling voice, lilting vowels and a harsh end. He listens raptly, ears drinking it in like wine like wine. Kay’s voice rings out, with its plaintive, longsuffering notes, and then the other speaker laughs. Chirrut hears him, and it’s like a bell in his head.  
“Bodhi,” he asks the barista, as evenly as possible, “Who is speaking in the kitchen?”  
“Hmm? Oh, that’s Baze.”  
“Baze?” He has never met Baze. In the days after the Palpatine incident, the owner had never been available to meet him- Chirrut sensed for some reason he’d been avoiding him- so he’d let it drop. Still, Bodhi and Jyn had insisted that he not pay for his order for several days after, Bodhi stating that it was at Jyn’s insistence, but the next time he’d met the Akbar family, he’d noticed that Bodhi gave them free coffee as well, so he’d chalked it up to Baze feeling badly about them having a bad experience at his coffeeshop. Again, he dropped the issue.  
Until today. He desperately wants to meet the owner of that voice. “You know, I’ve never met Baze. I’d love to meet my favorite cook.” He smiles the unassuming grin he knew was capable of disarming so many, and indicated his soup.  
Bodhi pauses a moment and then, casually, “Sure. Let me get him.” Bodhi is good at that, Chirrut thinks. He is an anxious young man, but he is good at making others comfortable. Cassian and Jyn are bantering at the end of the counter. They have taken many weeks to arrive at a place where the fighting is more flirtatious than out of fear. He is proud of them. Soon, their relationship will progress further. He ponders his own relationships, the friendships he has made here in such a short time, and the ones he has strangely, inexplicably...not.  
Chirrut is amazed at this: that what was previously a happy and comfortable moment is now fraught with change. Because he knows that’s what is about to happen; something will change. If he likes Baze, if Baze likes him, things will change much for the better. But the little cafe has become his second home, outside of the temple. If Baze dislikes him, will Chirrut still come? Will he still be welcome?  
But the good things- the possibility of good things outweighs his concerns. He gives a silent prayer of thanks to the Force for that possibility, at least, but mostly for change itself.  
The kitchen door swings open, and he hears Bodhi slide into his place at the register, notes the following steps that convey both reluctance and certainty, and then feels the large presence standing before him at the counter. He lifts his eyes towards him.  
“Baze?” He asks. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Chirrut Imwe.” He puts his hand out and smiles, feeling nothing but nerves and sunshine.  
The hesitation is real, though. “It’s nice to meet you, Chirrut.” And then a firm, warm, coarse hand grasps his.


End file.
